After a serious heart-to-heart, the Parti Québécois declares it’s pushing forward with the sovereignty dream

QUEBEC — The Parti Québécois is calling on the government to negotiate with municipal workers in the name of maintaining social peace and to come up urgently with a jobs plan.

And after a serious heart-to-heart behind closed doors, PQ MNAs decided they want to keep the sovereignty dream alive despite the negative message voters sent them in the April election.

“Our objective is not to be the flavour of the month,” interim PQ leader Stéphane Bédard said at a news conference where he reported on the work of a two-day party caucus meeting.

“We think Quebec should become a country. That will never leave me.

“The PQ is an agent of change. That means you have to convince people. Is the task more difficult? Maybe. Are we ready to take it on? Certainly.”

Bédard then announced the party, even without its new leader, will launch a new sovereignty promotion initiative in the next few days.

The new plan developed in caucus will go further than the “white paper” the PQ promised in the last election, Bédard said.

That plan included some kind of public consultation on the political future of Quebec by a PQ government, but the PQ lost the election.

In fact, observing Premier Philippe Couillard these last few days at the Council of the Federation in Charlottetown, Bédard said federalist Quebecers need to be vigilant because he’s never seen a Quebec government behave so meekly on the Canadian stage.

In Charlottetown on Thursday, Couillard raised the question as a discussion point Quebec’s traditional demands for more autonomy in the federation, but the premiers decided now was not the time to discuss the constitution.

Aghast, Bédard said it’s clear the nationalist wing of the Liberal party — which used to push for more clout in Canada — must be indeed dead and buried.

Bédard lamented the lack of collective interest in the issue and absence of outcry by the province’s editorial writers too.

But as it was the day before, the PQ can’t quite get focused and shake the presence of its millionaire MNA and media mogul Pierre-Karl Péladeau, especially as it enters a leadership race to replace Pauline Marois.

Péladeau appears to be the man to beat in the race already.

In the morning, the hallway chatter was dominated by news that two potential PQ leadership candidates are pushing for strict spending limits in the race because they fear the worst with such a wealthy candidate in their midst.

Lac-Saint-Jean MNA Alexandre Cloutier and Vachon MNA Martine Ouellet confirmed they sent a letter to party president Raymond Archambault calling for a substantial reduction in what candidates can spend.

“We don’t want a race based on money, we want it based on ideas,” Cloutier said. “Do we really need to spend $500,000 per candidate to have a leadership race?”

Cloutier and Ouellet said the current limit allowed under the elections act — $500 per individual donation — should be lowered to $200.

The overall spending limit per candidate should be cut from $500,000 to $250,000, they argue.

Party president Raymond Archambault was hurriedly sent before the media to say the party executive will look at the idea as it prepares draft rules for the race. They will be adopted Oct. 4.

Péladeau then was mysteriously absent from Bédard’s closing news conference even though the press invitation said he would be there as the party point person on the economy.

The issue took the focus off the PQ’s message that despite grand Liberal promises in the election, the economic climate is degrading in Quebec with 27,400 jobs lost since the end of March.

And the PQ said Quebec doesn’t need any more social tensions as a result of the feud over the Liberal government’s pension reform plan, Bill 3.

Without specifically committing to fast-tracking the bill as Municipal Affairs Minister Pierre Moreau proposed this week, Bédard said there is still time for the two sides to sit down and negotiate and “get Quebec out of pointless social tension.

“They should not cave in to threats but not provoke for the fun of it either,” Bédard said.